


Falling

by slightlykylie



Category: Make It or Break It
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 01:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlykylie/pseuds/slightlykylie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lauren's very good at keeping secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paranoidangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paranoidangel/gifts).



> This is an AU where Lauren can't do gymnastics any more at all after her heart problem is diagnosed. Some of the specific medical details may be wrong -- although I usually hate getting stuff like that wrong and would have spent a lot of time on it, since this was a pinch hit, my time was a bit limited and I only did cursory research. I take responsibility for all mistakes in that regard.

FALLING

 

               Lauren has a secret: she’s going to the Olympics.

                She’s known it since she was four years old, and she knows it now.  It’s her destiny, maybe her purpose in life.  It’s not something that a few doctors can take away with a few serious-faced lines of medical gobbledygook.  It’s not something anyone can take away.  She’s going.

                At first the doctors thought the deal with her heart was something she’d need surgery for, which would have been okay, but there’s no getting around it, it would have been really inconvenient.  They’d have made her go through with the procedure no matter what she said, and though she's sure that as a gymnast in top shape her recuperation period would probably be half the length of a normal slug-person’s, it would have cut a whole lot of time out of her training.  Then the word came back that the surgery wouldn’t help after all, and she breathed a sigh of relief.  She’d immediately shifted back into dreaming of the medals that she’d wear in a few short weeks, and she’d almost missed the next part.  Not that it would have mattered much if she had.  None of it meant anything to her.  So she’d always have the arrhythmias – so what?  It wasn’t some big problem.  When they happened she’d take a pill and a rest and they’d go away.  So who cared?  Of course the doctors had the serious-face talk with her about how it meant she’d never compete again, because she never knew when they’d come on and she couldn’t risk it when she was in the air above the beam.  She wouldn’t get to take the pill to make the arrhythmia go away if she snapped her neck in the fall first.

                “But you said there’s another pill I can take,” Lauren said.  “I’ll take it every morning and I’ll be fine.  Who even cares about the rest of it?  It’s not going to matter.”

                The doctor shook her head.  “I’m sorry, Lauren, but the daily pill won’t stop the arrhythmias completely.  The symptoms will be milder, but they won’t go away.  And… I’m afraid it’s a degenerative condition.”

                Lauren didn’t know what that meant, but she didn’t see any reason to ask.  The doctor went on to explain anyway – “It’s going to worsen over time.  And you already know that it’s worse in stressful situations and with physical exertion.  It’s simply too dangerous to allow you to compete at an Olympic level.”

                Lauren rolled her eyes.  “What do you want me to do, drop out of elites?  Compete with twelve-year-olds at level 7 or something? Please.”

                The doctor exchanged a look with her father when Lauren said that.  It was her dad who answered gently:

                “It… it does mean you’ll have to drop out of elites, Lauren.  I’m sorry.” 

                Lauren laughed again; the whole thing was so ridiculous.  “I’m not dropping out of elites, are you kidding? And I’m not dropping out of the Olympics.”

                “You’ll have to limit your work to floor routines,” the brisker of the two doctors said.  “If you insist on continuing with gymnastics at all.  It’s much too dangerous to allow you to work on any of the other apparatuses.   If you fall – well, you know what the consequences could be.”

                “But I’m not _going_ to fall.  You said the daily pill would make it better.  I hardly ever have dizzy spells even now!  I won’t have any with the pill. I know it.”

                One of the doctors sighed and started explaining again, but Lauren had already clicked out of the conversation. She was watching her perfect Olympic beam routine in her mind.

                After that Lauren takes the daily pill like a good little girl, and she carries the other ones around in her pocket.  She fills her days with shopping and dates and even with watching the other girls practice, to show how totally okay she is with all of it.  But – this is where the secret begins – she’s training at night.  She snagged a key from a janitor, and she lets herself in when no one’s there, and she works.  She works because she knows Wendy’s secret, too – Wendy’s spiking Kaylie’s smoothies with speed.  Wendy thinks she’s going to fall into the open slot naturally.  But Lauren knows it’s hers.

                Then a couple days later the early janitor finds her crumpled on the floor, passed out, with the bottom half of her leg jutting out at an angle no leg was ever meant to be. 

                Back in the hospital, Lauren stares out the window so she doesn’t have to stare at the bump under the blankets where the cast on her leg is.  The leg will take at least six weeks to heal.

                The U.S. girls win team gold at the Olympics.  Payson takes the gold on beam.  Lauren doesn’t watch.

***

                Lauren has a secret: she’s still going to the Olympics.  The 2016 Olympics.

                It’s not too late for her.  Payson’s training for them, although Kaylie’s dropped out.  So much the better for Lauren – less competition.  If only there weren’t all these bratty little 14-year-olds coming up, jostling for a place in the spotlight.  Lauren watches them practice sometimes from the glassed-in gallery, studying what she’ll have to face.  She hears the father of one of the little brats proudly call the brat “Queen of the Beam”.

                As _if._

                She can’t train at the Rock anymore, so Lauren’s training at the Y.  It used to be beneath her dignity even to go to that part of town, but never mind.  Staff at the Y know first aid, so the first time that Lauren passes out, on a treadmill, they revive her quickly and get one of her pills down her.  They start to frown at her when the same thing happens on the weight machine – “don’t you have symptoms before this comes on?  Tingling in your fingers?  You need to _stop_ when that happens –“ and when she falls off the beam and lands on her head they tell her she can’t train like that anymore.  She’s fine after that fall, nothing but a bad headache, but they still won’t let her train.  They tell her they have liability concerns.  They call her father.  He’s horrified that she’s still training.  He makes her stop.

                Once or twice she pretends the edge of her bathtub is a beam, but it’s too slippery.  She sits in the tub, pulls her knees to her chest, and cries.

***

                Lauren has a secret: she’s drinking way too much.

                Drinking and some drugging, but who cares anymore?  It’s not like she has any reason to take care of her body.  And she’s moved to Miami and she’s found friends who are throwing parties every night and what’s she supposed to do, stay home alone?  Her favorite drink is Red Bull and vodka – it makes her feel incredibly drunk and incredibly alive at the same time, bursting with energy.  When she’s had enough of those, she knows – completely _knows_ – that her gymnastics dreams aren’t over, that she’ll be back on the beam.  Soon.  She’ll be at the 2016 Olympics.  She’ll be at the 2020 Olympics!  “I can _do_ it,” she tells a guy she met a few minutes ago at a party, Red Bull and vodka in her hand.  “There was Oksna… Ok _sa_ na… Shuvovi—Chusobi… Chusovivivi…”  She breaks off into a manic laugh.  “Whatever.  She was a Russian.  Russians have funny names, don’t you think? It’s funny…”  She’s laughing again, and then remembers what she was talking about.  “But point is, point _is_ , she was in the Olympics and she was _37_!  I can do the 2020 Olympics.  I can do the 2024 Olympics!”

                “Totally, babe,” the guy she’s talking to says reverently, and kisses her.  So they go inside and have sex.

                Lauren’s having too much sex too, and with random guys.  But none of them matter, so whatever.  She’s not sleeping with her best friends’ boyfriends anymore, so there’s no one who cares.  She certainly doesn’t.  She doesn’t care about the hours and hours of each day that she loses curled up in bed with horrible hangovers; what does she have to be awake for?  She tried a semester of college but that sure didn’t work out, so now her dad’s paying for her apartment and she has nothing to do.  She doesn’t care about the hangovers.  She doesn’t care about the sex.  She doesn’t care about the abortion she has after doing all that for awhile.  She doesn’t care about the nightmares that crowd her sleep, nightmares about snapping her neck in a fall off the beam, of spinning right off the uneven bars and flying through the ceiling of the gym and breaking every bone in her body when she lands.  She has nightmares where she’s broken her back and she can’t feel anything.  Then in the morning she wakes up and she knows that not being able to feel anything is the best thing there is.  So in a few hours she goes back to partying.

***

                Lauren has a secret: alcohol isn’t cutting it anymore, and she’s doing a hell of a lot of drugs.

                At first it was pot and then it was coke and now it’s a whole lot of stuff, although she stays away from heroin, because ew, needles.  She likes ecstasy the best. But she’s spending too much money on drugs, and even her dad’s money is starting to run out as he starts to catch on and refuses to give her as much as before.  When she was drinking she got used to waking up beside guys she can’t remember, but now she’s waking up in even creepier positions: curled up in random places, stretched out naked on the floor with her head under a sofa – once in an alley, behind a trash can, her little-black-nothing dress dirty and ripped. She comes close to an OD at least once, vodka and Valium.  And the cocaine really, really fucks with her heart condition.  She keeps passing out.  It’s a fairly common sight at the parties she goes to, so no one pays that much attention.  She’s terrified for a brief moment when she wakes up, thinking she’s fallen off the beam, thinking they won’t let her go to the Olympics now.  Then she remembers, and goes to get more vodka.

                In quiet moments she is becoming aware that she is very unhappy.  So she tries to make the quiet moments go away.  But somehow they seem to be crowding in on her.

***

                Lauren has a secret: she called her mother. 

                She’s drunk and high and suddenly she can’t bear any of this anymore and she calls her mother because her mother knows about drug addiction, she’ll understand, she’s Lauren’s _mother_ and she’ll be able to help because that’s what mothers do.  She calls her mother, sobbing and choking, knowing her mom will have answers.

                When she finishes dialing she gets an automated recording saying that the number has been disconnected and then a piercing dial tone.  She sobs out her fear and misery to the dial tone, telling it everything, begging for help.  Then she hangs up and sobs more because she needs a person.

***

                Lauren has a secret: she’s back in touch with Summer again.

                Summer’s been out of her dad’s life and out of Lauren’s life for a few years.  She’s tried to get in touch with Lauren a couple times, actually, but Lauren dodged her calls.  But now she’s calling Summer.  Summer’s living in Florida now – in Ave Maria, of course – and she gets up at 3 am to make the two-hour drive to the address that Lauren gave her.  When she gets there she finds Lauren curled up in a dry tub, looking mostly dead.  Summer takes her pulse to make sure she’s alive. Then she starts thinking about how she can help Lauren to start living again.

                Summer tucks Lauren into bed that night and stays with her until the morning, dozing in a chair by Lauren’s bed.  When Lauren wakes up, feeling horrible, Summer’s looking at her seriously.  “What are you doing here?” Lauren mumbles.

                “You called me last night.”

                “I did?”  Lauren’s in a place where she’d barely recognize her dad’s face if he were beside her.  But she recognizes Summer, and she recognizes the warmth that steals through her when she sees her.  It feels something like hope, which Lauren thought died in her a hell of a long time ago.   “Why… what happened?”

                Summer can’t answer this because she doesn’t know, so she ignores it.  Instead, she says simply, “You have to let me help you.”

                And Lauren does.

***

                Lauren has a secret: she prays now, sometimes. 

Sometimes she prays that she’ll be able to do gymnastics again.  Sometimes she prays that her mother will come back.  Sometimes she prays that she’ll wake up tomorrow and she’ll be sixteen again and none of this will have happened and she can start over.

But more often she prays for the strength to face each day.  She prays to be able to keep following the Twelve Steps.  She prays to be able to make amends with the people she’s hurt.  She prays that Summer will stay around, knowing how lost she’d be without Summer.  Summer does stay.

                “This is God’s plan for your life,” she tells Lauren.  The first time she says that Lauren wants to throw something at her, but after awhile she understands that either this is God’s plan or there is no God, and she can’t stand the thought of the universe being as empty as her soul was for those couple of years, so she decides it’s God’s plan after all.  God never gives you more than you can handle, Summer says.  God gives you the strength you need.  God will always be with you.

                Lauren prays to that God, the one that has given Summer so much strength and peace.  For a long time she feels it doesn’t do any good, she can’t hear anything, there’s nothing there.  But slowly, over time, she believes she begins to hear something.   She begins to feel less alone in her mind.

                She begins to feel like she might be able to live the life she’s been given after all.

***

                Finally, several years after she lost her chance at the Olympics, Lauren doesn’t have secrets anymore.

                She’s open about her past when she speaks in AA.  She’s open with Summer about it.  She’s open with her father about how she abused his trust all those years and how she plans to get it back.  Her father is so thrilled to see his daughter back again that he’d give her the moon if she asked, but Lauren doesn’t ask.  She asks for what she needs.  She knows she can’t get what she wants.  She tried that and it almost killed her.  No more.

                When Payson goes to the 2016 Olympics, Lauren is there to see her.  She puts aside the stabbing pain she feels seeing her old teammate competing again and forces herself to be happy for her friend, or to be as happy as she can.  The Americans get team gold again.  Payson takes silver on bars, but there were a few falls among the other girls, and she’s not in the running for any of the other medals.  Lauren knows that artistic gymnasts are out of fashion, that you need huge moves to win these days.  She knows Payson will retire now, be all over everyone’s Wheaties boxes and Gatorades for a while, and then will fade out of sight and will go on with a life that won’t look very different from Lauren’s now.

                And after seeing the girls who medal on beam, she knows that even if she were still competing, she would have lost.  That time of her life is over.  It’s dead.  She’ll never medal in the Olympics.  She’ll never be a gymnast again.

               When she loses it after the Olympics and smashes everything breakable in her bedroom and living room, she intends to keep it a secret, but she winds up telling her AA sponsor anyway.  Her sponsor tells her, none too gently, that she needs to get her ass to two meetings a day for at least the next week.  Lauren thinks this is ridiculous until she ends up in a bar, staring at the Absolut bottles behind the counter.  She gets herself out of there, somehow, and she goes to three meetings the next day and two a day for another two weeks.  She has to get this poison out of her, this craving for what she’ll never have.  Gymnastics was something she had when she was a girl.  She’s a woman now.

***

                A couple of years later, Lauren has secrets again, but this time it’s a good thing: she has a daughter, and her daughter doesn’t need to know everything about Lauren’s screwed-up past.

               When she’s older Pace will want to know about Lauren’s elite-gymnast years, and Lauren will want Pace to know about her family’s addiction history, because it’s something Pace will need to take a lot of care around when she gets old enough.  But Pace will never know how spoiled and manipulative Lauren once was, never know just how many stupid, terrible things Lauren did when she was in pain.  All Pace knows is that her mom cares for her, looks out for her, loves her.  She never has any reason to doubt that, no matter how many times her mom pitches a fit over something that really doesn’t need a fit pitched about it (no matter how Lauren’s changed, no one ever said she was perfect.)  And Lauren, looking at Pace, sees the very best of Lauren in her – sees her passion without the privileged, spoiled edge, sees her deep love for others without the fear of abandonment and the consequent need to manipulate, sees her temper without the mean, spiteful edge.  Lauren didn’t know it was possible to love anyone or anything as much as she loves Pace, and Pace takes all that love for granted, and that may be the first thing in Lauren’s life that has ever been perfect.

               When Pace gets to be six or seven, Lauren sees she’s gotten another bit of the best of her mother: she can do things on the beam that Lauren’s never seen from a kid her age.  When she manages a  roundoff on the beam at seven years old, Lauren has to turn her face away for a minute to hide the sheen of tears in her eyes – tears that, even after all these years, are more sorrow and bitterness than pride.  But when Pace turns to Lauren with her face shining, looking for approval, Lauren scoops her up into a bear hug and tells her over and over how amazing she is.  Because she is.

               And when Lauren sees Pace take the gold on beam in the Olympics nine years later, Lauren’s heart is filled with nothing but joy.  Finally, she’s left her own anger and frustration behind, her sense that she was cheated out of the life she had been meant to have.  Pace is the life Lauren was meant to have.  And after all these years, Lauren’s found a place where what she wants and what she has are the same thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note -- I worried a bit about the intense religious aspect of Lauren's healing, and I hope you, my recip, are not opposed to religion! I don't think religion is a panacea by any means, but I thought that since Summer is so religious and Lauren relies on Summer so much, it would make sense for Lauren to turn to religion too. It's not a commentary on anything wider than that, though. Hope it's not too annoying!


End file.
